Delight of other days Observations about the world as I have seen it over seven decades and influences on my novels.

scary movies

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“Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Hitchcock…? I’m not a bit scared. I know the scenario of old: shambling, inbred rustics in some town in the sticks; corn dollies and a harvest festival; human sacrifice; a fat, perspiring sheriff; benighted travellers; a cockroach motel; (I don’t like cockroaches.) thunder and flickering lightning; electrical failure etc. etc. My Auntie Peg brought my sister to see Richard Todd and Glynis Johns in Rob Roy, as a special treat. (Bit scared of Glynis Johns. Definitely scared of Auntie Peg when she put on her disapproving frown.) Anyway, Rob was on the run. The baddies were waiting for him in a dark doorway.The tension was unbearable. My sister bit her knuckles. She screamed: “DON’T GO IN THERE, YOU EEJIT!” Sound advice. He should have known, from the scary music. We could all use some incidental music to warn us of impending danger.

“If you think we’re on the run…” Mister Hitchcock had some duds. Rear Window, for instance. Suspension of disbelief. The first rule of murdering your wife is not to do it in a lighted room with the curtains open and a fellow with binoculars gazing at you from another lighted room, with open curtains, just across the courtyard. He’s been watching you for weeks…very bad manners. Where’s your peripheral vision? Keep the noise down. Watch out for a portly gentleman, seen only in profile for a fleeting moment…a dead give-away. Pull the drapes or it will be ‘curtains’ for you. (Sorry about that. A bit obvious.) Crop-duster plane…he’s going to crash and burn. (Not a bit scared. I knew he would.)

We are the boys who will stop your little game….Spooky old motel in the middle of nowhere and a twitchy proprietor with ‘wierdo’ written on his forehead. DON’T GO IN THERE, YOU EEJIT. Definitely don’t take a shower. Ask to meet his mother. Another dead give-away. Trust your instincts. Run like hell.

We are the boys who will make you think again… He hit the nail on the head with The Birds. I was scared last Tuesday evening, just after sunset. There is something about crows. They have history, the scavengers of ancient battlefields; the plunderers of the slain; the cunning protagonists of fables. Light thickens and the crow / makes wing to the rooky wood./ Good things of day begin to droop and drowse/ And night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. Birds of ill omen, with their crowbar beaks. They were everywhere, last Tuesday evening, an encrustation of crows. Silent. Watchful. Waiting. They got home before us. Stop worrying about seagulls. Full marks, Mister Hitchcock.

Skerries Mills will hold a harvest festival on August 23rd. It will include the burning of a Wicker Man. GO THERE…..if you dare.